


making the best of the aftermath

by girlsonthetv



Series: akechi lives and is dating ryuji for some reason [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: M/M, Mild Angst, Post-Canon, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 08:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11181339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlsonthetv/pseuds/girlsonthetv
Summary: akechi was the last person ryuji expected to see at his therapist's office. mostly because he was supposed to be dead.





	making the best of the aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> reference materials include this canon-compliant ryugoro timeline by @STARPUNCHER on twitter (http://blackstar.tumblr.com/post/161244227377/p5-rarepair-dumpster-diving-directors-cut)

By some kind of miracle, probably, Ryuji was fifteen minutes early for his therapy appointment. Good and bad, good because he didn't expect to even be on time what with class lasting longer than he thought it would and the subway running late, and bad because now he had to spend fifteen minutes in a waiting room. He hated waiting rooms, especially small ones with dusty blue walls and no sound save for tinny jazz playing on a little speaker.

He sat down in one of the standard-issue chairs and resolved to make the best of it. He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his social media even though he had just done that on the subway ride over. He snuck a glance at the tired-faced secretary sitting at the counter that was part of the wall. He let out a sigh through his nose.

There was another person in the waiting room with him, reading a book like some kind of cultured person. Chestnut brown hair that fell to their shoulders. He was dressed nicely, business casual in jeans and a long-sleeve button-up despite the weather. He reminded Ryuji of Goro, but everything reminded Ryuji of Goro these days. 

He had ten minutes until his therapist would poke her head out the door and ask in a soft voice for Sakamoto Ryuji, so this was either the wrong time to have a minor mental breakdown or the perfect time. Ryuji tended not to think about stuff like that until the mental breakdown had been done and dust. He snuck another glance at the stranger, who was currently giggling softly at something in his book. Akechi used to giggle like that, his brain helpfully reminded him. And after giggling like that he would flutter his cute eyelashes and give you a whole new complex.

He thought about Akechi much more often than he let on to his therapist, though of course he never talked about him by name. He couldn't tell anyone the real story, so he made up a mostly-fake delinquent past with his friends to explain why he was there, trying to pick apart what had happened to his head during high school and partly heal the scars with his shiny new prescription, or at least make them hurt less. 

He mostly thought about Akechi at night when he couldn't sleep or had woken up too close to morning to bother going back to sleep. The ways they were alike, the ways they could have been friends. The way the light played off his features when they were sitting in the booth at the brunch place with that stupid French name he would give anything to remember right now. The way he was most likely responsible for Akechi being fucking dead. The way he might still be alive if Ryuji had played his game differently. 

Ryuji had gotten past most of his complex regarding his orientation by now. He knew he had been in love with Akechi back then, and his heart still ached thinking about their one, maybe two dates. What could they have been if Akechi had survived? What had he destroyed like everything else he touched? He felt a little like he was choking with the knot in his throat. 

"Sir, are you alright?" And the stranger is looking him in the eyes, holding his wrist gently but firmly because that's what psych people do when it looks like a patient is going to cry or scream. And as Ryuji takes in his face, the scars upon scars and the warm, honey-brown eyes widening in recognition, he realized the stranger wasn't a stranger at all. 

"Would you like to go outside for a minute?" Goro Akechi asked, glancing back at the secretary who was focused on her computer but still had ears.

Ryuji heard himself say "Alright, okay."

/

"I thought you were dead, asshole!"

"I thought you might have been a little happier to see me." Akechi murmured softly, his arms crossed as he stared down at the sidewalk.

Ryuji took a deep breath. Then another deep breath. He looked up at Akechi's face, so disfigured he understood why Akechi didn't see the need to dye his hair or do any of that other disguise stuff. He looked down at the sidewalk with Akechi and tried not to cry. 

He took one more deep breath before asking "Why are you here?" 

"I'm doing an internship. I go by Tsubaki now, by the way." Akechi snickered. "It was the first thing out of my mouth when Myoui asked me for a first name."

"Myoui...the secretary?" Ryuji asked. Akechi nodded. "Didn't know she had a name." Ryuji muttered. 

Akechi laughed, a loud, genuine laugh that startled Ryuji with its' shamelessness. "Oh...oh, you really haven't changed!" He said wonderously once he had stopped laughing. "Seeing you, I thought it would be hell, but I feel oddly calm."

"Neither of us have any weapons." Ryuji said. "We don't have to fight, anymore." He ignored how his voice caught as hard as he could. "Why a psychology internship?"

"Detective work wasn't for me. I know a certain amount about the human brain." Akechi said with a rueful smirk.

"And why are you just hanging out in the waiting room like the rest of us plebs?" Ryuji was waving his hands around as he spoke - little ADHD things - and narrowly avoided smacking Akechi in the face. 

"Myoui didn't have anything for me to do." Akechi shrugged. "It's better than wandering outside up and down the street where middle-aged mothers stare at me like their knockoff bags aren't equally hideous." He sneered.

Ryuji laughed hysterically, a short bark of a sound. "Yeah, I'd prefer to be left alone with my book too."

"If you read books." Akechi said.

"Hey, I read more these days. I'm taking online anatomy classes." Ryuji said proudly. "I was taking a gap year, but then I realized I was never gonna go to college." He realized that he was really pouring his heart out to the guy who betrayed him and his and attempted to kill his best friend, and felt a little embarassed despite himself.

"You're telling me a lot of stuff about you." Akechi raised one mostly-intact eyebrow. "I could use that against you." 

"What are you gonna do, manipulate me? What would be the point of that?" Ryuji snorted. "It's over now. Yaldabaoth is gone, Shido is gone-" Akechi flinched, and Ryuji felt bad but kept going. "-and we're all just making the best of the aftermath. And I still really like you. I still wish we could have been friends." Ryuji left out 'and maybe lovers' but Akechi seemed to hear that part regardless as he bit his lip. They did a little more than talk when they had snuck away in Sae's casino, and they had both thought about it their fair share of times when all was quiet except their thoughts. Neither of them spoke for a minute.

"That's why I'm here, in case you were wondering." Ryuji said. "Making the best of the aftermath. I've been going to Ms. Minatozaki here for...four months, and doing a whole fuckin' lot of research on my own time and talking to her on the phone some more, and I have a whole cocktail of unaddressed mental illnesses that I wanna start addressing." Ryuji finished somewhat softer than he had started. "I take medicine now. Sometimes I taste it accidentally, and it tastes fuckin' gross."

Akechi laughed. "That's...that's good. It's kind of you, that you still see anything in me." Akechi said softly. He felt Ryuji's hand on his shoulder and fought the urge to flinch away. 

"Hey, us kids with shitty dads have to stick together." Ryuji said, a laugh implied in his voice that never left his mouth. 

Akechi suddenly felt the bizzare desire to hug him, and instead settled for taking the hand that was still resting on his shoulder and held it in his hand. He moved his thumb to Ryuji's pulse and felt it quicken. 

"Hey-" they both said at the same time, and blushed.

"Hey." Ryuji said. "Did you wanna go get brunch some time? At that French-styled place? Like old times?"

Akechi giggled and Ryuji felt his heart swell. "I was about to ask the same thing. How about next Tuesday? I get out at eleven that day, you can come pick me up."

"Sure." Ryuji said. Wow, he was already whipped. 

"Sounds like a plan. Now you go to your appointment." Akechi let go of his hand and Ryuji remembered why he was there.

/

"You were talking to Tsubaki outside." Minatozaki said as they both sat down in her office. 

"Oh, yeah. We were talking about - the book he was reading." Ryuji said after he remembered who Tsubaki was.

"He's a good man." Minatozaki smiled as she rifled through a few papers.

"Yeah, I like him a lot." How many layers one phrase could have, Ryuji thought.

/

They have their first kiss at that French-styled brunch place, like they were always meant to.


End file.
